LEXINGTON  An elaborate clock inspired by a philanthropist's dream will become a showpiece at the downtown library.

Lucille Little said Thursday that she is spending more than $400,000 on the clock, which will feature 60 horses around the clock face.

The idea came to me in a dream, Ms. Little, 91, told about 70 guests at a luncheon in her honor at the Lexington Country Club. I get some of my best ideas in dreams. They just hit me.

The clock dial will be mounted in the library's atrium, around the fourth-floor overhang.

It will be enormous, 40 feet in diameter, said Jim Verdin, president of The Verdin Co., a Cincinnati clock designer and maker recruited for the project.

There will be no hands, only numerals. Each numeral and minute mark will light up. On the hour, chimes will play a short melody. The chimes's volume can be adjusted.

The 60 horses around the clock face will be programmed to light up in sequence to look like a horse racing around the edge.

Besides the clock, Little is donating a Foucault pendulum that will hang from a 70-foot cable suspended from the library dome. The pendulum will swing across a floor mosaic designed by Lexington artist Adalin Wichman.

A Foucault pendulum's movement around a circle is caused by the Earth's rotation.

We think it has so many implications for us, said Greg Davis, marketing manager for the library. It's tremendous.